A worker in a match factory from the age of 16, Jouhaux soon became one of the leading propagandists of revolutionary syndicalism. He was national secretary of the matchworkers’ union by 1906 and was appointed secretary general of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT; General Confederation of Labour) in 1909. Before World War I he joined with German labour leaders in an attempt to organize an antimilitary movement; but subsequently he supported the French war effort. He attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, which set up the International Labour Legislation Commission, of which he was one of the most active members. From this time he also urged the foundation of the Economic Council, which was set up in 1925. He believed that trade unionism should have a role in directing the economy but insisted that trade-union action remain independent of political action. He refused to join Léon Blum’s cabinet in 1936 but in that year agreed to the return of the communists to the CGT, from which they had been split since 1921.

During World War II the Vichy government dissolved the CGT and arrested Jouhaux and turned him over to the Germans; he spent the rest of the war in a concentration camp. Returning to France, he was again secretary general of the reconstituted CGT, but in 1947 he split with the now communist majority and established in 1948 the Force Ouvrière (“Workers’ Force”), which stood between the communists and Roman Catholic labour organizations. In 1949 he helped to found the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and in 1951 he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

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